Communing With Nature
The next step I would have to outline for learning the path of Magick is literally, becoming one with Nature. First of all it is naturally rejuvenating; the green color is healing, the sounds and sights are stress relieving. There is a lot of peace to be found in just quietly sitting in the woods someplace, or up on a rock outcropping where you see for miles, or sitting on large flat rocks in the middle of a stream soaking up the sunshine. In our absurdly fast paced world, it’s nice to slow down. But that is not all of it. Nature has a voice all it’s own. There are patterns to be found, and messages to be recieved for those patient and centered enough to listen. In ancient times this reading of the patterns was called Augery, and Julius Caesar among others studied this venerated art.
When I say patterns, I mean that you will see there is a pretty set likelihood you’ll see a squirrel, or a sparrow, and then there are the likelihoods you’ll see something more rare, like a deer or a heron. If you see something that is outside of that normal range of experience or frequency, usually it’s a message. Everything you see in Nature carries with it some sort of unconcious meaning. There are books that you can buy that have lists of things you could see and interpretations of them. Animal Speak and Green Witchcraft are two books that I know of that have these lists, but you can also look to dream interpretation books as well. A good example I can think of is when I started falling in love with certain individual from my past named Jeff. I walked out my front door to go to school, and there was this spectacular red flower growing on the front path that I swear to the Lord and Lady, was not there the day before. I looked up the meaning and sure enough it had to do with love and passion. Another example was right before I started trying to move “off-grid”, out in the woods, pretty much by myself. I saw within the span of a few days, several herons, it’s like I couldn’t get away from them, and I don’t usually see so many. So I looked up their meaning and generally they are associated with rugged self-determinism. As I see it the whole environment is directly reactive to our unconcious. It is plastic and ever changing, and every species has archetypes associated with it. I was out walking yesterday I started seeing these strange red bushes down by the Rock river. Now one of the first things that was impressed upon me as I began my little sojourn yesterday was the big-ass powerline spanning the river, but I also noticed the amount of birds there were. That’s a good sign as to the health of the river, that means there are lots of bugs to feed on. But then I started noticing these curious flame red shrubs. They were identical to the normal brown ones, except in color and then it dawned on me, I think the shrubs were adapting to the increase in electromagnetics in the area, and given the color, red, I think the plants are ticked. These are my musings and observations. For all I know those shrubs could be there for any number of reasons, but my point is the patterns. Pay attention to the trees and shrubs and flowers and wildlife, they will tell you alot. They manifest according to Divine will and for those who are listening, there are lessons to be learned.
Global Death Wish
So time for more of my random observations. I am flabbergasted at the amount of pessimistic people that I encounter on a daily basis. Not only are they pessimistic, but they feel threatened by a person who has hopes and ideas to make the world better. Day in a day out I deal with people who are willing to stauchly defend outmoded ideas even though they have very little experience or knowledge of the subject. I guess it stems from that fact that to change one aspect of their perception would result in a domino effect that eventually would threaten their entire world view and I suppose I can sympathize with that, lord knows I wish I had more stability to cling to, it certainly would help my emotional health. Anyway I digress. The pessimism I encounter is indicative a very deep and serious problem. Belief. People don’t believe their world can get any better and so it doesn’t. For whatever reason be it too complicated, painful, scary or whatever they don’t look within themselves and realize they have the power to change everything. This lack of hope is translating into as I see it a global death wish. The armageddon type mentality that says things cannot be fixed so lets just throw in the towel. My friends we are going to get our wish if we continue on this path and I don’t know about anybody else but I was raised with the idea that you take care of the gifts you’re given and you don’t give up. Which brings me to my next point, spell work. To often it is passed off as something some vengeful wart ridden social outcast does in her spare time, but whereas that does exist, that is quite far from all it is and magic has the potential to create heaven on earth. In the upcoming weeks I am going to do a thing unheard of for a witch (good thing I’m not truly a witch:) ), I’m going to publish parts of my grimoire. I also am going to start discussing magical theory and practice, including diet and the concept of a person being a universe onto themselves, a universe that directly affects the outside world. The intended effect of this is to start educating the hordes of viewers I have (can you smell the sarcasm?) of an alternative way to foment positive change in the world. It is very disturbing what is happening these days and even more disturbing is the fact that nobody thinks anything can change, but each and every one of us has a small spark of the divine within us and if we do not choose to use our power for ourselves someone or something else will come in and use it. So be it misguided or not that will now be the focus of my writing. I hope you find it enlightening:)
Misleading the sheeple, once again
So something else I have noticed lately. The powers that be I guess are trying to discourage any more people from liberating themselves from the herd. I was talking to my father about the fact that I really don’t see any hippys down here in Madison any more. The place used to be lousy with them a few years ago (I can say that because I consider myself to be one). My dad said that he just read an article saying the “neo-hippy” movement was dead. I don’t know what publication it was but it apparently said that everybody decided to get real and get jobs or whatever. My take on that considering in Wausau I know plenty of “hippies” is that it’s some sort of media blitz to discredit us and discourage people from joining the ranks if you will. Then the other day I was reading my latest issue of Smithsonian and it was talking about the fact that biofuels may be all fluff because of the fact that people haven’t taken into account that the corn that is used to make ethanol, used to be feeding people and it’s making the price of corn rise which will ripple throught the economy. I have never been on board with ethanol for the reason that it is one more load on already overloaded and mismanaged farm land (see my post “Wisdom in food choices”. But they neglected to mention much if anything at all about biodiesel which is made from waste fryer oil, leaving the reader with the impression that the whole idea of biofuels is a bad idea. Again misleading people. Finally as I write this I am reminded of something I saw in the Wausau City Pages probably about a year ago now. It was a front page headline saying “Is renewable energy really a solution” or something like that. But when you turned the page that it was listed as being on, no article. Nowhere in the paper was that article. So people as they walk by had that thought put in their head. I am deeply angry at this trend I am seeing and it shows to me just how deeply imbedded in our media big oil and energy are. Doubt unfortunately is a powerful thing, and they are using it to undermine the visionaries and ideas that are going to solve the problems of our age. Make no mistake renewable energy and biofuels are a solution, maybe not the entire one, but a piece of the puzzle none the less. The rest of the solution is burning these greedy corporate executives at the stake, in a fire fueled by their beloved oil.
There is no such thing as coincidence
So I moved to madison, kind of a bizarre twist on things at the last second, but it seems there is a fate behind it. All the things I have written about in the last year, I am now witnessing first hand the root of it all. I do not know what I am going to to do yet, but you better believe I will not sit idly by as my beloved land gets pieced up and destroyed. I have two things for you to ponder that sum up what is going on down here the best. The first is Piason’s. Those of you that know anything about Madison will know what I am talking about but for those of you that don’t it is a very old restuarant near state street, near the UW. My father went to it when he went to school here in 1952. It had an amazing atmosphere, very queit very cozy and intimate, with latticework booths and hardwoods floors. The university tore it down two years ago. They now opened an ultra ritzy Piason’s a few blocks away. A large chunk of the UW’s soul was detroyed with that building, because Piason’s wasn’t known for it’s food, but for it’s history and atmosphere. The other thing for you to reflect on is Freakfest/State street. The place was shut down with cops for freakfest this weekend. A few years ago a riot broke out and things turned nasty. Well the place went on complete lockdown this year. There were cops and private security guys everywhere. State street, on of the last bastions of free, progressive, dare I say hippy thought, shut down and swarming with cops. What was the real reason that riot broke out? Wisconsin has one of the best and respected university systems in the country, and state government has been selling it out, forcing it to cut back on itself. Madison is losing it’s soul. So that’s why I was brought down here. I guess it is time to start kicking some corporate lobby ass.
Strategy and Wisdom
This issue, the destruction of the northwoods entails many things, not just the fight at hand. Change needs to come on a deeper level. We live in a gigantic web so to speak and movement in one area of that web results in sympathetic affects in another. The point has to be made that these forests would not be endangered if the need for the products they are used for declined or was redirected, or if people cut down on their on grid electrical consumption(kill your TV!!!). The forest goes to either paper or pulp industries. Everyday I see the trains(trains always reminded me of dragons) coming from Lignotech/Weyerhauser (paper manufacturers in the Wausau area, where I live) from the Northwoods with absolutely appaling amounts of trees in tow. See the greater issue here is of balance, knowledge tempered with wisdom, and it is the foundation of all the issues we face today.
As far as I see it there is really only one thing to do, destroy these corporations at the root. If they lose business they lose money and if they lose money they lose investors and eventually they will wither and die. As to changing the logging of the forest I am doing further research on who is doing the buying and will plan action accordingly. I fear I am over my head somewhat with the mining right now. I am putting my clean legal record on the chopping block for this. I do not agree with the policies and actions of my government and the corporations that run it and if I am a criminal for it that so be it. If people do not stand up there will be no world to save, and it will come sooner than you think. I am not going to be one of the doomsday ranks who believe the world is going to end anyway so why should I care. We stand on the brink of either global enlightenment or global annihilation, and it is entirely up to us which it is. . It is a choice that is as old as the universe itself, has been presented to every generation before us and will be presented to every generation after us. What you believe is what will happen. It is the small local battles that are going to decide this and the result depends on whether we can ground ourselves and focus on what we can do and not get overwhelmed by what we can’t. If everybody who reads this, focuses on the local environmental polluters and destroyers in their area, we’ll stop this madness very quickly. Be the change you wish to see in the world and be not afraidJ
Solutions to the problems
So I have been grousing this whole time about all the problems of this world and now it is time to offer some solutions. Before I say anything else though I have to stress, because it is of the utmost importance, that what will believe is what will happen. We are the Gods here folks, stop abdicating your personal power and realize that you have the power to change everything, you must only believe. It is an incredibly simple concept, but with profound power. Stop asking for someone else to save you, do it yourself. Stop taking your prozac and blaming everybody else, wake up, start paying attention and join the momentum in the right direction. Every person counts, not to sound cheesy and quote Mulan (I do love that movie though) but a single grain of rice can tip the scales, one man may be the difference between victory and defeat.
Now beyond that I have a few ideas, some more practical than others, that I see as being the most powerful ways of solving the problems we face today. The first is stay the hell away from anything that even vaguely smells like corporate america. Corporate greed is destroying the environment faster than anything. Buy local wherever you can. Start your own business. If you find that you still have to go to Walmart every once and a while, well don’t beat yourself up, but don’t give up either, eventually we’ll turn the tide. Eventually we’ll bleed them of their money even out the wages in this country and we won’t be so poor that we have to shop there anymore.
The next solution I have is stop buying on grid electricity, simplify life and use off grid solar energy for what you absolutely cannot do with out. You’ll find the less you are around electrical equipment, the more peaceful you’ll feel. Use candles for lighting (it creates a much nicer ambiance than bulbs), get a wood stove (harvest deadfall wood around you and use your burnable garbage as fuel), start a garden and grow most of your food(compost everything!), hunt if you must eat meat, read instead of sitting in front of the boob tube all the time (you’ll be much more educated and intelligent), walk everywhere(you’ll lose weight). Don’t use paper towels and tissues, use reusable washable barmops and hankerchiefs. Buy clothes from second hand shops. Wash all you laundry on cold with environmentally friendly detergent, don’t use fabric softener and line or rack dry it. Use everything to the point of it falling apart. Save little things like the plastic containers that your sour cream and yogurt come in and reuse them as tupperware. Plant trees wherever you can (Arbor day sells them really cheap to members). Do not be afraid of speaking out. If you choose your words and battles carefully there is nothing the powers that be can do to stop you. Start cooperating with your neighbors. Why not try to start a community garden? The more we learn to work together independent of the government, the more we will be strengthened as individuals and the less they will have an opportunity to oppress us. Violent revolution is not the best solution as far as i see it, the best way is to simply turn away. They can’t profit and destroy the environment if there is no one to sell it to.
Now if you are at all like me there are a few technologies that I feel are indespensable. The internet is something that I do not feel should be abolished(hell who’d listen to me if it didn’t exist?), I feel it should be powered by off grid means, whether it be solar, wind, whatever. However I think you will find though as you reduce the electrical devices from your life, you won’t really want to spend that much time around technology. The question here is not totally eliminating technology, because that would be impossible, but simplifying and streamlining things. I have had the wonderful opportunity to spend a lot of time at an off-grid community close to where I live, and it is so peaceful, so regenerating it is amazing. They do most things low tech out there but they have small solar panels to recharge their cell phones and laptop computer, and they also use car inverters as a source of power. But there is most definately a balance and they do not plunder the land. Why we as a race have cashed in our natural world for a bunch of gadgets is so utterly beyond me it makes me cry.
Now my next point is a local one, and it is a transitional one, I do not mean this as a permanent fix. 25% of the energy from Weston 4 will be lost as heat in the cooling water for the generator which will be simply pumped back into the Wisconsin River. The amount of heat lost is enough to heat all of Wausau. We have the sewer systems to run the piping through and the subterranean tunnels that snake through Wausau from the days of prohibition. Using Radiant floor heating or even an old boiler system we could refit Wausau so that everybody’s house would be heated in the wintertime, for free, and we would not be wasting energy.
So there are just few ideas, I am by no means an expert so I’m sure there are plenty more ideas that I have not thought of. If you truly want to help you’ll find a way, run google searches, try to find like-minded individuals, don’t be afraid of radical change and people looking at you funny. Focus on local issues, don’t get lost in the big picture. You will find that the local little stuff tends to have an impact on the big picture, and it strikes with more power and inertia than any top down approach could ever have. The best thing you can do is change yourself, because when you do, the serenity and strength you find will shine forth like a star, and the people around you will see it and be inspired. It will be like a ripple effect to those who are in direct contact with you. You cannot hide Truth, and it will spread like wildfire once it is known.
Local Issues
The first thing that comes to my mind is the Scott Street Steak and Pub in Wausau. For those of you that dont know, the Pub is approximately 100 years old, and is a fixture in downtown Wausau. It is a piece of history. The community development authority in town here bought it and wants to tear it down to build a parking ramp for Dudley Tower, a “skyscraper’ that was thrown up in haste that nobody really wanted either except for a few rich bigwigs. Now mind you, if this parking ramp is built, as you face north, there will be three parking ramps in a row. If we are trying to build charm and character to make Wausau stand out, this is not the way to do it. They used underhanded manuvering to pressure the Pub into closing. Such as using their connections in the local paper to print articles saying it was on it’s last legs when it wasn’t, so that people wouldn’t go and the place would be forced to shut down and sell. Such as revoking their liqour license with no good explanation as to why (there has never been any problems with Scott Street obeying the law). I went to the last night it was open, June 30, and watched as at midnight the cops came in and shut the place down because the liquor license expired at midnight. They couldn’t even let the place stay open the extra two hours to have the final act, the headlining band, Corpse Show Creeps, play. What little media coverage there was of this entirely failed to mention it was almost a riot when the police showed up. There was heckling of the cops, such as people yelling “you guys are corrupt” and “fuck the police”. People didn’t move until they announced that the party would be moving to the PI, another bar in town. But they didn’t mention people’s anger. What were they worried people might take a cue from that? Revolution is simmering, and trying to hide the truth is only going to make it worse. Or did they want to give the illusion that nobody cared and further twist the truth to their own advantage? I don’t know, but there is something seriously wrong in our world that such history is thrown away like trash.
Wausau has changed so rapidly in the last three years that we are beginning to lose our sense of identity and Scott Street is the poster child of this. All over this country it is happening because big corporations are franchising their way into every town, buying out the little guy and destroying the local economy. I want to cry that Scott Street is now closed because it was such a cultural anchor for Wausau(the only decent sized stage for local music to play), there are few things left in Wausau now that have that kind of history, those kind of memories. See Wausau is a town with a lot of ignorant people, ignoramuses who have no idea of the value of history and what folly it is to destroy it. My father used to make the comment that people are born here, go to college (if they are lucky) within 60 miles of here and die here, never ever seeing the world that lies beyond Wisconsin (I sometimes wonder if that has something to do with the whole magnet theory I posed in the ELF section) I want to tear my hair out in sheer fustration at the stupidity that runs rampant around here. This lack of experience is what is doing Wausau in. All these idiots watch their TV and see all the shiny new crap that is held in front of them and they want it, totally clueless to the fact that all things come at a price and that progress rarely ever is truly moving in the right direction. I have lived in Cleveland, D.C., and Phoenix and I can tell you that there is a very dark side to progress. The poverty of the disenfranchised, the decay, the crime, the pollution, the destruction of nature. That is why I settled in Wausau because in 1996 when I came here it was 20 years behind the rest of the world. The land was pristine, the water was pristine(the lakes and stuff up north were, sadly the river was severely polluted by the time I moved here, but that has to do with the fact the Wisconsin River is the most heavily dammed river in the country and as such, it cannot naturally cleanse itself), this place was peaceful and extraordinarily beautiful. What is coming is going to totally destroy this town. But again it is only history repeating itself and that is my whole point, those who do not study history are doomed to repeat it. Scott Street stands a as testament to what founded this town. Lumber Barons, who chopped down trees that were the size of the California redwoods, but only they were pine trees. People who could only view the land in terms of how much they could profit from it. This is NOT what we want to attract to Wausau. This land is doomed to have the same injustices repeated until someone conciously stops it. I am reminded of an article I read about the super bowl in Detriot a few years back, where they made the comment of catering to outside wealth. Wausau is doing that and I have some very dire warnings about it. It began when the Rib Mtn Ski hill was sold. Mind you this ski hill shares the mountain with Rib Mtn state park, and so conservation should be at the top of list of priorities. They changed the name to “Granite Peak” and started cutting down trees on Rib Mountain to build more runs (they are still building more). The sheer arrogance of it appalls me, and again it is looking at the land in terms of how much money can be made from it. I used to be able to rent a snowboard and boots and get a day pass for the lift for 30 bucks, it now costs 140. Then the drug dealers started coming up from Chicago and Milwaukee and the crime started. Then they started building. The mall got sold to a company out of Ohio and I’m sorry but I have nothing good to say about Ohio, and this company has only proved my point. They are tearing up downtown with their God-forsaken greed. I think 50% of downtown Wausau is now new, and it is construction that caters to outsiders as opposed to providing the people of this town with what they would want. There was a referendum that failed a few years ago about a convention center/hotel downtown. People did not want it. But hey, somehow we got a hotel anyway, the Jefferson Street Inn. Isn’t that interesting? I know that something needed to be done to revitalize the area but this is not it. I have to point out that you never know in this town when city council meetings are. They don’t advertise them in anyway shape or form. The only place they do advertise is on the public access channel, but the bulletins from there are always three months behind. I swear to God it’s like a private club that they don’t want you to know about. They make it as hard as possible to have a voice in the decisions made in Wausau. As far as I am concerned that is corruption right there. They do not want us to know what is going on because they are doing something they know they aren’t supposed to be. And now, quite predictably, the crime is coming to a head, just a few weeks ago a man shot at an officer during a routine traffic stop. I believe that is the first time something like that has ever happened here. Outside wealth is like the Kraken of Greek mythology. They will devour anything of beauty until all that is left is their own grotesque hulk, and then they will move on. They will destroy this place, they already are. I am angry at the corporations (and I mean the government when I say that as well, they are the biggest corporation of all) but I am angry also at the intelligent creative people who used to live here that abandoned this town because they thought it wasn’t cool enough. You are just as guilty as the one’s who are destroying this place because you do not recognize the value of roots, knowing who you are and where you’re from. I stayed here because I knew what would eventually come, and I knew that this was the place to draw the line. Wausau is the gateway to the Northwoods, and it is the perfect position of strength from which to defend it. I love this town and I would die to protect it, but its kind of hard to do anything when I cannot even see my enemy, because he hides behind a veil of wealth and priviledge.
Excuse me for a moment because I need to digress. I hate rich people and I come from a very old and honorable family so I can say that, it’s not just sour grapes. My family still has a family estate in Rhode Island from when my great grandfather eight times removed was Royal governor of Rhode Island and was reelected to that position even after the American Revolution, and our family still has an ancestral castle, Ferniehirst Castle in the Scottish lowlands. There is great responsibility that comes with great power, and as such, great wealth. I was raised with this notion of service my whole life and anybody who comes from , or studies such backgrounds will know what I mean. Those who earned their money in a capitalist society certainly do not have the same code of ethics. I went to best of the best private schools my whole life, and learned far more than what I wanted to about how the other half lives (the so called better half) They are bastards. They got that way because they stepped on the backs of their workers, because they were selfish and arrogant. Those who have been given more have a duty to use that in the service of others, a message that is entirely lost on the ruling class of our country. All I have to say is remember the French Revolution? Well it can happen again, and it’s closer to that than you realize, so keep wallowing in your filthy money and power, see where it gets you. You show your true colors by even having such wealth in such horrible times. There are people dying in the streets. if you were worth the air that you breathe you would give away your money and your time, as I have, in an earnest effort to help those in need. Instead though you hide in your gated communities and buy politicians to pass laws that make you even richer, instead of fixing the social woes that face our society. Again that is exactly what happened in the french revolution, the nobility just hid in their houses and hid behind their power. People are losing respect for the government and this is why. The government is run buy corporations. Wealthy corporations that are still trying to make even more money. Those who have the money have the power, and if you don’t have money then well your a lazy second class citizen who doesn’t deserve a voice anyway. I’m sorry but some people actually have a concious. Your sugar and your mind control have not conquered everyone. The Arrowhead Weston line is another example of this. They built the powerline anyway that nobody wanted, tearing up the countryside to build Weston 4, another coal fired plant that going to further dirty our air all so American Transmission Company and Wisconsin Public Service can make their investors a tidy profit. They plan on building a Weston 5 and a Weston 6. When does this stop? These people are coming here because they destroyed where they were living and have nothing left so now they are going to come up here and consume until there is nothing left here. All I have to ask you rich bastards is at the the end of the day does that fat wad of cash keep you warm at night, does it keep you from going mad when you look at yourself in the mirror and realize what a monster you are? Or do you even feel anymore, did you sell that out as well when you sold out your integrity? Your comuppance will come and I will be dancing in the streets when it does. Wake up people before it is too late!!!
Wisdom in food choices
With the power we have gained we most learn to use it wisely. Oriental healing theory is approxiamately 5000 yrs old (from henceforth when I refer to oriental healing it is not just Chinese, but the three ancient oriental healing systems I have studied, Egyptian, Chinese and Aryveda). It is based on sound observation, intuition and experience. I cannot go into all of it, for I would end up writing a very long book, but there are some things that need to be mentioned in the context of the problems we face today. I honestly believe the natural world is a direct reflection of our conciousness, and if we heal ourselves we will heal the earth.
Food is key here. You are what you eat. There is a priciple in Aryveda, the Vedic system I have studied, called Sattva. It basically states that the conciousness of whatever you eat will meld with yours and so you will take on the properties of what you ate. You are literally what you eat. That being said, the various convoluted, unethical porecesses our food goes through needs to be paid attention to. Agriculture in this country needs some serious revising. I am a vegetarian, so I am anti meat, but most Americans are not and we’re not going to break the carnivores overnight of their addiction to flesh. What we can do however is work out the kinks in the system so that so much biomass is not wasted. As it stands right now, 80% of the grain grown in this country goes to feed livestock. As you go up the food chain you lose a factor of ten in energy, so that when you get to something like tuna, a secondary consumer, the energy it provides is 1000% less effiecient then if you ate some beans. On top of that, in the fields of Iowa, the equivalent energy to prep the field for either corn or wheat is equivalent to three to four tons of TNT per acre. A normal grassland prarie ecosystem produces more biomass naturally than our most advanced wheat field. The supposed problem is that it’s in the form of grasses that we cannot palate. But with 80% of our grain production going to feed feedlot animals wouldn’t it make more sense to go let them graze on the natural prares? They can eat it. There were more bison produced naturally on the great plains before farming then all of the beef cattle farmed in the same area today. Not only that but it gives them a much better quality of life. I don’t know about anybody else, but my biggest beef with meat-eating is the lack of respect and dignity given to these animals, the appalling inhumane conditions they spend their entire life in. Not only would it free up farmland to grow things like hemp (which paper among other things can be made out of) but it would reduce our dependency on oil, as most commercial fertilizers are petroleum based, not to mention save a sizable chunk of change considering the government subsidizes this whole nonsense. Another thing that could be done is avoid all refined sugars. The health benefits of eliminating that and any refined grain (breakfast cereals included) from a persons diet are amazing. Sugar should be classified as an addictive drug. It was an industry founded on the suffering and death of countless Africans, and that darkness rules it still. In our current age of anxiety and stress, these refined foods further accelerate and destabilize our bodies’ metabolism. Magnesium, a mineral found in brown rice and stoneground wheat (make sure the ingredient label says stoneground because otherwise it’s been refined) directly acts to break up what scientists have dubbed the anxiety peptide the forms in the brain. The magnesium found in whole grains cures restless legs, muscle cramps and spasms and has a general stabilizing effect on the body and mind. The amount of energy to manufacture refined products, that are only slowly killing you anyway is absurd. Two thirds of grain corn is used for further processing. 45% of this goes into making sugar, The rest goes into making ultra-refined products such as ethanol (ethanol is not a fuel holy-grail). This would also significantly cut down on the algae blooms choking our waterways and causing the dead zone in the gulf of mexico. It would also cut global warming by eliminating the gases released from fertilizers and leave more trees to clean the air. Anyone who wants further information on this subject should visit http://www.harpers.org/archive/2004/02/0079915
On a related note, I stumbled across a myth on Hathor, the Egyptian Goddess of mothers and of children. When not depicted as a nursing human mother, she was depicted as a cow. The story goes that Ra, her father found out humanity was plotting against him, he sent his burning eye (mind you Ra was a sun god) and it took the form of Hathor, who as her “alter-ego” if you will, Sekhmet(the lioness headed goddess), started destroying all of humanity. Now maybe this is a stretch, but I believe all ancients stories speak of some truth, however long forgotten it may be. We are starting to see the effects of Global warming (burning eye of the sun) and it can be directly linked with in addition to fertilizers, such things as manure from mega cattle and dairy farms(Hathor). This chokes our waterways, interfereing with the natural respiration cycles and water cycles of our world, preventing rain from naturally washing CO2 out of the atmosphere. Interesting coincidence, or long forgotten truth? I know what I think. Nurturing and nursing is not easy, I feel so sorry for the cows that are impregnated by artificial means (if your going to have a baby, you should at least have fun creating it). Their children are taken away from them to be chained up in a small isolated plastic hut, then their slaughtered to be tender meat for somebodies descerning palette. Dairy cows are hooked up to machines that are degrading (if you’ve every used an electric breastpump in public, you know what I mean) and that can literally blowup and injure a teat. And then when these cows are spent, they are discarded like trash and sent to the slaughter house. For creature that gives us so much, we treat Hathor’s sacred cows horribly.
The roots of the subjugation of the feminine
If we’d just learn to share and not be afraid of each other this would all stop. Looking within results in the inevitable conclusion that we are all one and so we all want pretty much the same things. There is nothing to fear in your fellow man, if you would only look. So many people live in the terminal state of loneliness and few ever figure out why. So many people look to material wealth as a way of filling the hole, and the more they consume the less they truly live, dooming themselves to a downward spiral of greed and paranoia, because with all this material wealth comes the fear of it being taken away. It is a story as old as society itself. Why humans moved to agriculture instead of hunting and gathering had nothing to do with it being more efficient, or more healthy, it had to do with wealth, storing up reserves. I have to point out that we moved in this direction after the last ice age, which I’m sure must have scared the pants off our ancestors. Just as it is today, unresolved fear turns into anger and anger turns into greed and egotism hence the start of the selfish practice of agriculture. I believe it was a direct reaction to the ice age and the introduction of fear into our world. And when man started trying to control his mother the earth, he also started trying to control the mother of his children. Humanity originally started out as egalitarian. Fear and egotism was the birth of patriarchal society. Trying to control those two factors in his life resulted in the inevitable domino effect of attempting to control his wealth and resultant paranoia that his neighbor was going to steal it, the start of fear of one’s fellow man. Sadly humanity has not been able to step back and effectively see this and so it continues to make the same mistake.
Women need to take it upon themselve to educate themselves, acknowledge what power they do have and learn the unify with other women. We can return to an egalitarian society if we as women band together and do not give men what they want until our demands have been met. If every woman in the countyr banded together what would the abusive assholes that seem to be springing up by the thousands do? Kill us all? No, they would be forced to behave themselves. Women have phenominal power, they need to learn to use it though and they need to learn to stick together in communities. In the long run everyone will benefit.
Water
What Wikipedia says about water(abridged):
Water cycle
The biosphere can be roughly divided into oceans, land, and atmosphere.
Water moves perpetually through each of these regions in the water cycle consisting of following transfer processes:
-evaporation from oceans and other water bodies into the air and transpiration from land plants and animals into air.
-precipitation, from water vapor condensing from the air and falling to earth or ocean.
-runoff from the land usually reaching the sea
Most water vapor over the oceans returns to the oceans, but winds carry water vapor over land at the same rate as runoff into the sea, about 36 Tt per year. Over land, evaporation and transpiration contribute another 71 Tt per year. Precipitation, at a rate of 107 Tt per year over land, has several forms: most commonly rain, snow, and hail, with some contribution from fog and dew. Condensed water in the air may also refract sunlight to produce rainbows.
Water runoff often collects over watersheds flowing into rivers. Some of this is diverted to irrigation for agriculture. Rivers and seas offer opportunity for travel and commerce. Through erosion, runoff shapes the environment creating river valleys and deltas which provide rich soil and level ground for the establishment of population centers.
Water is considered a purifier in most religions. Major faiths that incorporate ritual washing (ablution) include Hinduism, Christianity, Islam, Judaism, and Shinto. Water baptism is a central sacrament of Christianity; it is also a part of the practice of other religions, including Judaism (mikvah) and Sikhism (Amrit Sanskar). In addition, a ritual bath in pure water is performed for the dead in many religions including Judaism and Islam. In Islam, the five daily prayers can be done in most cases after completing washing certain parts of the body using clean water (wudu). In Shinto, water is used in almost all rituals to cleanse a person or an area (e.g., in the ritual of misogi). Water is mentioned in the Bible 442 times in the New International Version and 363 times in the King James Version: 2 Peter 3:5(b) states, “The earth was formed out of water and by water” (NIV).
Some faiths use water especially prepared for religious purposes (holy water in some Christian denominations, Amrit in Sikhism and Hinduism). Many religions also consider particular sources or bodies of water to be sacred or at least auspicious; examples include Lourdes in Roman Catholicism, the Zamzam Well in Islam and the River Ganges (among many others) in Hinduism. In Neo-Paganism water is often combined with salt in the first steps of a ritual, to act as a purifier of worshippers and the altar, symbolising both cleansing tears and the ocean.
Water is often believed to have spiritual powers. In Celtic mythology, Sulis is the local goddess of thermal springs; in Hinduism, the Ganges is also personified as a goddess, while Saraswati have been referred to as goddess in the Vedas. Also water is one of the “panch-tatva”s (basic 5 elements, others including fire, earth, space, air). Alternatively, gods can be patrons of particular springs, rivers, or lakes: for example in Greek and Roman mythology, Peneus was a river god, one of the three thousand Oceanids. In Islam, not only does water give life, but every life is itself made of water: “We made from water every living thing”.
The Greek philosopher Empedocles held that water is one of the four classical elements along with fire, earth and air, and was regarded as the ylem, or basic substance of the universe. Water was considered cold and moist. In the theory of the four bodily humors, water was associated with phlegm. Water was also one of the five elements in traditional Chinese philosophy, along with earth, fire, wood and metal.
What I say about water:
Water in most magical/metaphysical frameworks in feminine. Water is what we are predominantly made of, what this planet is predominantly covered in, and what naturally washes CO2 out of the atmosphere, into the seas and lakes and rivers where it eventually bonds with the sediment and other carbon. Water is also the element of emotion, security, sexuality, and just as the moon rules water and affects the tides on the planet and in people, the condition of our water is manifest in traits of the human psyche. We, just like the planet, are 70% water. Too often this is overlooked. Water is a living ecosystem as well, teeming with organisms of all sizes. Two things we do our water that need to stop are clorination and flouridation. Chlorine breaks up vitamin E, which a lack of can lead to cancer, cataracts, macular degeneration, alzheimers and parkinson’s disease. Flouride inhibits the bodies natural ability to heal tooth decay (you heard that right, cavities can heal themselves if you consume enough silica) and it has never been shown to prevent anything, flourine is the stuff that has been shown to halt tooth decay, but what we put into city water is flouride. On top of that flouride is banned in most European countries and is classified as a tranquilizer in oriental medicine. Stick that in your pipe and smoke it for awhile. They’re putting tranquilizers in our water. So often people want to sterilize everything but what they don’t realize is that the chemicals used to do so are equally as harmful to us as whatever organism they were intended to kill. Toxins and chemicals build up in our bodies and can be linked to all sorts of stuff. On the topic of peoples obsession with sterilization I should bring up another point. Little bacteria mutate, and they want to survive no matter how inhospitable an environment they are presented with. You can never kill 100% of anything(that’s why that bottle of lysol says 99.99%) and so that remaining percent adapts and learns to thrive on your newly sanitized countertop. But these little guys are something entirely new because they had to mutate to survive. Now couple this with the fact that there is beneficial bacteria and there is harmful bacteria. You need things like acidophillus to live, otherwise you cannot digest things. Also 70% of your immune system is in your intestines. Whether you like it or not we are infested with bacteria, I think that just as we are a combination of atoms, our life comes from the combination of all these little organisms (mitochondria were bacteria that were assimilated into cells). What is outside gets inside your body by one means or another and by sanitizing your home you created a world of mutant bacteria that can thrive off of the toxic chemicals you saturated it with. Do you see where I’m going with this? Those mutant bacteria get inside you and reek havoc on your immune system, especially if antibiotics are added into the mix. True health comes when you can recognize that you cannot just kill off bacteria, we need them to live. What you have to do is learn to create and environment where the healthy ones survive and shut out the harmful ones for you. Eating a diet of whole pure foods is the best way to do this. Water is the same deal. We need to cultivate a healthy living water supply as opposed to trying to kill everything off and in the process slowly killing ourselves. In our culture of excessive meat eating which leads to overheated bodies, temperments etc, algae (chorella, spirulina and wild blue-green) counteract by being extremely cooling. If our water ecosystems were pure and we were able to drink out of the streams and such like our ancestors, we would naturally consume low levels of algae constantly, reaping their health benefits. Also these algaes encourage that healthful intestinal flora I was talking about in addition to being having the highest concentrations of B vitamins and protiens of any natural food and generous amounts of iron and fatty acids that are essential to healthy nervous system function. The chlorophyll molecule is identical to the hemoglobin molecule except for the fact it has magnesium instead of iron as the central atom. So it is the natural treatment of choice for anemia. That’s in addition to the trace minerals found in natural spring water.
Hopefully I’ve proven my point that a lot more attention needs to be paid to our water. We need to start removing dams so our rivers can purify themselves and work on cultivating healthy LIVING water ecosystems. Water is so completely fundamental, it would fix most of the problems we are having on this planet right now. As I have said water is the element of the unconcious and just as our collective unconcious is riddled with problems, our natural world is a reflection of that. People think we are separate but we are all one. Just as the Gaia theory states, the Earth and all of her children are one gigantic, dynamic, self regulating organism. If we heal ourselves we will heal the earth and vice versa.
